Even Newsweek Thinks Katherine Heigl is a Twat

Aw, even mainstream media such as Newsweek has turned on Katie Heigl.  They’ve published a not-so-complimentary piece on their website highlighting the most annoying parts of the Grey’s Anatomy actress.  What’s going on?  I guess people are tiring of the constant smoking, the constant whining, and her general inability to let something go (Isaiah Washington).

How did Katherine Heigl fall so far and so fast in esteem? Part of it is pure sexism. Every decade has a Most Annoying Actress (not that long ago, Jennifer Love Hewitt was the object of tabloid disaffection), never an actor, and it’s a distinction doled out via a caveman’s principles. Heigl violates every archaic, unspoken rule of being America’s box-office sweetheart. A lot of actors smoke, curse, drink, and mouth off, but she gets the most grief for it. Last summer, when she was caught flicking a finished cigarette onto the sidewalk, Star magazine quickly tarred her as an environmentally unfriendly “litterbug” who inappropriately goaded a nearby police officer into letting her off without a ticket.

But more than simply daring to challenge chauvinistic mores, Heigl has shot herself in the foot with her delivery. Everybody applauded her defense of Grey’s costar T. R. Knight after costar Isaiah Washington called him a “fag.” But then Heigl kept prattling on and on, even after Washington was fired in disgrace. People started to wonder if Heigl’s comments were less about Knight and more about her. Last July, in an attempt to be noble, she removed herself from the Emmy race because, she said, she had not been “given the material this season to warrant an Emmy nomination.” The press again slammed her for the diva attitude (did she really need to issue a statement? And did she have to insult the show’s writers and producers while she was at it?). When she resubmitted herself in the race this year, Emmy voters failed to nominate her—even though she’s done her best work on the show this season as cancer-stricken Izzie. But forget about Izzie and her eroding brain. Heigl wants all the sympathy for herself. This week, she carped to David Letterman that she’d had a “seventeen- (dramatic pause) hour (dramatic pause)” workday on set, and that she was “going to keep saying this because I hope it embarrasses them [the Grey’s Anatomy show runners].” Embarrass them for what? Keeping her employed? To a country nearing 10 percent unemployment, the remark was tone-deaf.

She is an undeniable box office draw, as her newest movie The Ugly Truth premiered this weekend to $27M in ticket sales.  That’s a career best opening for Heigl and her costar Gerard Butler.  Unfortunately, Newsweek wasn’t so impressed with her performance.

Heigl has fared pretty well on the big screen—Knocked Up was a smash, 27 Dresses a modest hit. Now she’s back with The Ugly Truth, a romantic comedy that hits theaters Friday and does her likability no favors. She plays Abby Richter, an uptight local news producer whose staples are Ann Taylor button-downs and sanctimony. When a boor named Mike Chadway (Gerard Butler) with a smutty dating show joins her morning lineup, Abby kicks the shrillness into overdrive, furious that non-news would invade her pristine segment. But then, before you know it, Mike and his 5 o’clock shadow are leaving beard burn all over Abby’s face. Soon, they’re floating away to paradise in a hot-air balloon. Good for them.

Except, you don’t feel very good for them. It’s hard to empathize with Heigl’s character, so thorny and shrill for the first half of the movie, so dumb and willing for the second half. (At a recent pre-screening in New York City, at least five people bolted for the door midway through the movie.) Abby fails to see the vast swath of middle ground between buttoning up to the top button and donning vibrating black-lace panties, which she does meekly at Mike’s command. Just like real life, in which Heigl seems unable to see the acreage between oversharing and keeping her mouth shut. Heigl might be an actress, but she could work on her act.

There’s only one thing that can save Katherine Heigl’s rep.  She needs to start adopting orphans.  Stat!